ABINGTON – Fire Chief John Nuttall is expected to present plans to construct a 100-foot antenna at the Bedford Street fire station to planning and zoning officials next week.

The new tower, to be constructed on a concrete pad on the station’s grounds, would mean a major upgrade for the Fire Department’s communications network, Nuttall said. The tower would replace an aging 40-foot antenna that was badly damaged in a blizzard four years ago.

“If we’re going to do it, I’d rather go higher,” Nuttall said.

The height will allow the antenna to relay fire call box signals from every corner of Abington, creating much-needed redundancy in the network, Nuttall said. Some signals now are relayed to Abington from Holbrook.

The new antenna would also allow the department to clear its roof of a tangle of decades-old wires and mount more communications equipment at a higher elevation.

During the 2010 storm the existing antenna was knocked partially off the side of the fire station building by high winds. It is attached now by a couple bolts, Nuttall said.

There is another antenna at the town’s dispatch center, but it would be the only communications tower available if the existing antenna failed altogether.

“This is a project that really needed to be done a few years ago,” Nuttall said. “It’s vital at this point.”

The project is on the Planning Board agenda for Monday. It then goes before the Zoning Board of Appeals on Thursday.

Town meeting voters approved $35,000 for the antenna in 2012 and another $18,000 last year, Nuttall said. A relatively small amount left over from a FEMA infrastructure grant will also contribute funding.